When Chloe Hattersley's mother dies after an illness, she must pack up her old life and journey into the north of England, to begin again with her strict aunt and adulterous father.
But something goes terribly wrong and instead she finds herself in the strange world of Egortiye -- where the seasons are prisons controlled by criminal kings and queens: a dangerous land where ideas are powerful and altering, where deceit rules, and the worst thing is to have no purpose.
With only Brandon Tuck, the enchanted boy-faun, and the manipulative gaoler, The Spinster of Seasons, to help her, Chloe must make a perilous journey through the seasons to find the Backstage Door for the way home.
But Chloe is being hunted. The sinister Man with 8 Faces wants her skin, and he'll tear the world apart to get to her.